Manual

Day 1 / Brewing

4. Fill the pot about 2-3 l with filtered water (leave at least 1 l of space)

5. Lid the pot and bring to a boil on high flame

6. Meanwhile, measure the tea and the sugar:

- Put a small cambro/container on the scale and tare it out (for each container)
- Weigh out 60 g of tea into the smaller container
- Weigh out 600 g of white sugar into the bigger container
- Prepare a space in the kitchen were to transfer the hot pot when the water is boiling.

7. Turn off the flame under the water when boiling, and transfer the pot to the dedicated location (NOTE: the handles may be VERY hot--it is best to use not only gloves but also pieces of aluminium foil to prevent burning the gloves)

8. If you are making black tea kombucha, go ahead and add the tea (black tea). If you are making green or white tea, add 500 ml of filtered water to it to cool it down to 90ºC (~190ºF), then add green or white tea (same amounts). Use a stainless steel spoon to make sure that all the tea is submerged in the hot water

10. Wait 10-15 minutes max and in the mean while

11. Add the pre-measured 600 g of sugar into the bottom of an empty pot (at least 6 l)

12. Strain the tea by pouring the infusion through a strainer into the pot with the sugar. Put tea waste into compost.

13. Stir the mixture intensively for 2-3 minutes to make sure that all the sugar is dissolved.

14. Cool the mixture down by adding 2-3 l of cold filtered water. Stir again before moving on to the next step.

15. Pour this “syrup” into a fermentation vessel

16. Add enough water to make the fermentation vessel 2/3 full. Check the temperature to make sure it isn’t warmer than 30ºC(100ºF). If too hot let to sit up for 1-2 hours to cool down.

19. Add the appropriate kombucha SCOBY, making sure that the growing young part is facing "up".

20. Cover the jar with a muslin square or kitchen towel, securing with a rubber band or wire.

21. Label each jar with acronyms of tea used as a base, organism used for culturing and date when the culture was started (meaning when the organism was added) and initials of person who prepared the batch (example: black tea kombucha base, prepared on 08/30/2010 by Froggy Toad would be labelled as: BK - 08/30/2010 FT)

Bottling

1. Wash bottling hose in hot water and attach it to the mixing container if valve present. If not put the mixing vessel on a crate to increase the gravitation flow and move the hose to the bottom of the mixing container

2. Place your empty clean bottles on towels by the mixing vessel. (Consider the type of the bottles because of the pressure accumulation during secondary fermentation).

3. Open the spigot/valve or suck the un-submerged end by pump or mouth to start the flow (hold low)

4. Empty about 100-200 ml of liquid from the mixing vessel through the hose and into a tea cup. (This cleans out the hose of liquids that were previously being bottled or any after taste). Close the valve or squeeze the hose (soft plastic) to stop the flow.

5. Put the hose into the bottle, sticking it all the way in to the bottom of the bottle. (This prevents the creation of foam and enables you to fill each bottle only once).

6. Turn the spigot or release the hose so that the liquid flows out of the mixing tank and into the bottle. Fill the bottle up to about 2-4 cm below the top of the bottle. (This leaves enough room for the drink to develop effervescence without putting too much pressure on the lid or the bottle).

7. When the bottle is filled appropriately, pinch the hose to stop the flow and move the hose to the next bottle, sticking it all the way in to the bottom of the bottle.

8. As each bottle is filling, screw the cap on to the bottle that was just filled and affix a label if screw tops are used.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 above with all the bottles until they are all full, lidded, and labelled.

10. If the beer bottles and caps are used, use the capper to cup all the bottles and label them.

11. Transfer the bottles in to the crate and label the crate with the name of the flavour, the bottling date, and the number of bottles (example - white tea kombucha, hibiscus flavour, date of harvest 10/12/2010 --> wkh 10/12/2010)

12. Mark the type and number of harvested bottles to the logbook

13. Move that crate to the secondary fermentation area (15-30ºC(60-85ºF)). Note that the temperature should be oscillating and not constant!!!(various microorganisms in the culture have different temperature optima).

14. Hold back at least 2 bottles from each batch to be labelled “experimental” and use is it for experimental purposes. It is best to take these bottles from the middle of the bottling process. Put a piece of tape on the side reading: “EXP mm/dd/yy” and a notation of what is in the bottle: 15/11/2010 WKGL means “white kombucha ginger lime, harvested on 15th of November 2010.”

Day 3 / Secondary Fermentation

1. Allow the drink to sit at room temperature for 24-48 hours depending on the temperature, flavour, and batch

- Grape usually needs only 1 day
- Hibiscus usually needs only 1 day
- Most of the other flavours do best with 2 days

2. Transfer bottles to refrigerated walk-in until consumption

3. Let to sit at least for a week for plain kombuchas, and two for flavours